Benji - they don't have to do another photo recce. They've already done many. If they're doing more, they're doing it clandestinely, not with tripods and view cameras. Or even with film SLRs. It'll be digital happy-snaps taken on the fly. This is not a good argument for abridging the 1st Amendment. As Benjamin Franklin so aptly put it (I'm paraphrasing here), "Anyone who would trade liberty for security deserves neither".

Last edited by TheFlyingCamera; 07-25-2012 at 12:27 PM. Click to view previous post history.

Benji - they don't have to do another photo recce. They've already done many. If they're doing more, they're doing it clandestinely, not with tripods and view cameras. Or even with film SLRs. It'll be digital happy-snaps taken on the fly. This is not a good argument for abridging the 1st Amendment. As Benjamin Franklin so aptly put it (I'm paraphrasing here), "Anyone who would trade liberty for security deserves neither".

Before you all throw your hats in the air, are terrorists doing a photo recce. for a forthcoming major attack on Washington also protected by the first amendment ?

If I wanted to get pictures of a place to attack it I'd just use a smartphone. I could take hundreds of shots everywhere and be hardly noticed, if at all. From above there's Google maps and numerous other aerial photography sites.

I do use a digital device in my photographic pursuits when necessary.
When someone rags on me for using film, I use a middle digit, upraised.